


Shadowlands

by Marchwriter



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Drama, M/M, Murder Mystery, Post-Slash, Pre-Lord of The Rings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 02:15:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5988646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marchwriter/pseuds/Marchwriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the accident Erestor asked no more of life or love than to be left alone. But when a shadow from the past disrupts his hard-won peace, he finds himself fighting desperately for both. A gift-fic for the My Slashy Valentine 2016 exchange.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The King is Dead, Long Live the King

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Glorfindel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glorfindel/gifts).



> Author’s Notes: Written for Glorfindel. Many, many thanks to Larien Elengasse who was willing to scour this behemoth for me. 
> 
> Genre: Drama/Mystery
> 
> Request: Erestor/Elrond. A good, old fashioned whodunnit, complete with red herrings and an unguessable ending that ties everything up nicely.

Erestor stepped into the ringing cold, feeling out the steps with his stick before setting his bad leg down, the shoulderbag bumping at his shoulder. He would not send the scullery maids into this sort of weather.

The fire in the great Hall had been burning high since October, and the worst winter anyone could remember (and some of them remembered the Helcaraxë) had locked Imladris in. Even the Bruinen, which never froze, had frozen even north of the ford.

He stacked several logs and lugged it over one shoulder. It wouldn’t be enough. But it was more than they could keep up with, managing all the fires. The bedrooms would be cold until supper at this rate.

A clatter of hooves on cobbles assailed his ears as he reached the uppermost step. What madman was out riding in this weather?

He shielded a hand as a gaunt roan cantered, skidded alarmingly on a glaze of ice and reined up at last mere paces from the foot of the steps, steaming and panting.

Its rider had fared no better.

Pale with cold and shivering from more than, the boy clutched with one, blackened hand the hilt of a sword sagging oddly in its sheath as if there was no weight beneath to hold it in place.

The rider had to use his left hand to pry the other off, and the sword hit the cobbles with a knell, its blade broken a foot beneath the crossguard.

“He is dead.”

****

The King of Arnor, hero of the Last Alliance, Isildur firstborn son of Elendil, was slain. Along with three of his four sons.

The tale fell with terrible finality into the silence of Lord Elrond’s cabinet as the rider, who only named himself Ohtar, confirmed what many had long believed but had refused to admit.

After facing fire and war and the deaths of his father and brother, only to be ambushed by Orcs at the very Pass that would lead him home proved Fate a feckless mistress, indeed.

Behind his lord’s chair, Erestor, for his part, held the composure required of his station.

Grave-faced, Elrond laid a hand on the hilt shard of the sword-that-had-once-been-Narsil. “Valandil stands to inherit.”

Glorfindel stirred from his place by the bay window. “Others may not have it so, my lord. There have been… murmurings among certain members of the ruling family — even before we knew for certain Isildur was lost — who would not see Valandil inherit, or my ears are wood.”

“Why?” asked a junior councilman, a Sinda, who had few dealings with the remaining royal family and even fewer years on the cabinet. “He is in direct line a descendant of Isildur himself. Surely, they could wish the order of succession no plainer?”

No one answered.

Erestor knew or guessed the rumors of which Glorfindel spoke—and who spoke them. But his own place among this assembly was as tenuous as Valandil’s amongst his kin—though he was, at least where Elrond was concerned, one of them.

Some habits never broke even when the reason for them did.

Glorfindel’s gaze found his across the room. Unerring as always, the Golden Flower. “That may be, but his mother’s brother, for one, will press a claim through marriage. At least for regent. And that… I do not think any here want.”

“And at any rate, Valandil is not yet of an age to rule,” seconded another. “Someone must be appointed regent in his stead.”

An air of expectation thickened in the room.

Alone of any, Elrond himself could press a claim for regent and, indeed, for kingship—of Elves and Men both—if Valandil proved unfit — a fact Elrond well knew and chose to ignore much to the dismay of his handlers and those hungry among the Noldor for their former glory.

“Heir and regent must be named. And soonest.” Elrond brushed a finger across his lips.

Erestor stirred. “My lord—”

“Delay is most prudent, my lord,” interrupted Trastion. The senior councilor smoothed a beringed hand over his richly brocaded vest. “Men are fickle creatures, and too oft their reach overextends their grasp.”

“They fought beside us on the Dagorlad. They were not fickle then,” Erestor said.

“Given the opportunity, they will quibble over inheritance and bloodline until the Valar decide to flood the rest of their kingdoms,” Trastion insisted. “There is nothing to trust in Men anymore. Their fruit and flower wither with each passing year.”

“To delay is to do nothing, and we have done that for too long while we waited for this news. Annúminas needs a leader, a strong one. And the more we put off our duty, the worse it will seem to Men, and the alliance we worked so hard for will crumble more than it already has.”

Glorfindel’s eyes flicked between one and the other the way a swordmaster attends a bout, waiting to see who would draw blood first.

“Since when have you ever been Men’s champion, Erestor?” Though too much of a politician to show open disdain, Trastion couldn’t quite conceal the curl of his lip.

Elrond held up a hand to forestall further speech. “Your points both have merit. I will have to think further on the matter. Very well. That is enough grave news for one day. Thank you, all, for your attendance.”

Erestor waited for the more senior members to pass before he slipped out, conscious of the tap that followed his every other step.

He had taken barely two steps into the corridor when a voice assailed him.

“Your lordship over kitchen and scullery maids has given you far too high an opinion of yourself. But believe you me, Erestor, speak before me in chambers again, and I will have words with Lord Elrond.”

Erestor stopped as Trastion pushed himself away from the mullioned window. “I must speak as I see fit.”

“You, varlet, ought to speak only when spoken to, or to ask his lordship if he requires another cup of tea.”

Varlet. Knave. Serving man… And worse.

Erestor had heard it before. It irked some of the more traditional-minded Noldor that a man of no great social standing or birth was included—and, indeed, consulted—in matters reserved for those of purportedly greater knowledge.

But to introduce his detractor to the butt of his stick would give more credence to their claims than silence them. He had not displayed a shred of ill temper since the night of the accident, and no slandering nobleman would tip his hand.

But Trastion was determined to push. “So, will you be sitting at the evening meal tonight? Or serving it?”

“I shall do whatever my lord requires of me.”

“Of that, I am sure. One does wonder what manner of favors you ply him with that he holds you so high in esteem.”

Determined to push, indeed.

Erestor opened his mouth to reply, but another beat him to it.

“Surely, I must have misheard.” Deceptively soft. Steel beneath. “It sounded as though you were disparaging the character of a man who served his king and country, Trastion.”

Glorfindel had stepped into the corridor after them. “As I’m sure you remember, Erestor served as Elrond’s adjutant in the thick of the Dagorlad. Three years in the thick of it. He stood by Anárion, the King’s son, defending him even after he was killed. Decorated more than once. Where were you, might I ask, Councilman? Sitting on a bridge somewhere? Or behind the lines with the rest of the rear echelon _swarn_.”

He stalked closer, a wolf to a lamb. “Last I looked, there was no shame in noble service. Whatever one’s duties. In particular, I have the greatest sympathy and honor for the valet who must deal with you.” The stinging sweep of his gaze took the councilman in from circlet to fringed boots and declared him wanting.

Trastion bristled but dared not answer back to one who had faced a Balrog and lived (mostly) to tell of it. Only the brashly drunk or the very foolish did so—and never with impunity. ~~~~

Glorfindel all but openly smirked as the councilman gave some feeble excuse that required his immediate attention and whirled on his heel in utter route.

Erestor tapped his stick against the floor, beating out the retreat until the councilman rounded the corner. “You enjoyed yourself entirely too much. Might I remind you, I am not some swooning maiden in need of rescue. You spoiled my fun. I was about to introduce him to _Bess_.”

“Somehow, I doubt he would have appreciated that as much as others. Although…” Glorfindel glanced down the corridor speculatively. “That would explain a few things.”

Erestor limped towards the arcade that led to the kitchens. This was an old argument, much thrashed over, but that after all this time, Glorfindel still thought him helpless… Or worse, pitiful…

“Oh, did I hurt the old serjeant major’s vaunted pride? If it helps, I didn’t do it for you. After all the hot-winded palaver in there, I miss an afternoon’s entertainment without the opportunity to put such caitiffs in their place.” Glorfindel deftly sidestepped to Erestor’s unencumbered side. “Besides, it irks me to hear you so besmirched.”

Erestor fluttered his eyelashes at him. “La, my knight in golden armor. Trastion is the least of my concerns at the moment.” He negotiated the wide steps one at a time, conscious of Glorfindel restraining himself from offering an arm.

Glorfindel’s shoulder nudged his playfully, almost knocking him off his feet. “You may repay me by doing what you do best and wheedling a spare bottle of fine red from that stingy gremlin of the cellars.”

“Gwîndir is a gentleman and a scholar. Bite your tongue. And he will have to provide for perhaps a hundred people, so you will have to wait.”

A clatter of footsteps made them both pause for the puffing pageboy who came racing down the corridor to catch them up. He bowed to Glorfindel and thrust a very pale and sharply folded parchment at Erestor.

“Sir. A message for you, sir.”

Erestor returned his smile only politely as he scanned the message. “I fear your merriment will be short-lived,” he said to Glorfindel, dismissing the pageboy with a nod.

Glorfindel craned over his shoulder. “What does it say?”

“I am to set another place at the board tonight. His lordship will arrive this eve from A[nnúminas](http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Ann%C3%BAminas), and he would see his nephew.”

“That’s uncannily timely.”

“ _Ill news flies on swift wings_ ,” Erestor said, tucking the parchment into his belt. “I fear I have quite lost my appetite.”

“Elrond will have to tell him of Isildur’s death. And open all manner of hell in doing so. I think I rather prefer to face the Balrog again.”

“And leave our lord to face the beast alone? No such luck, my friend.” Erestor clapped him on the shoulder and steered him towards the cellars. “At the very least, let us see what Gwîndir can spare to fortify ourselves for the evening.”

“Gentleman and a scholar! Lead on!”


	2. The Snake and the Jewel

The Hall was full and raucous with the clatter of plates and platters, knives and laughter and smoke, the low buzz of chatter threading all.

Though whether most understood the importance or simply enjoyed the spectacle was hard to say.

A passel of Dwarves out of Khazad-dûm (though fewer and fewer made the journey each year) took their favored seats in the corner shoulder to shoulder with the usual merchants and tradesmen and passers-through.

The servers wove between tables and chairs with the ease of practice, laying down platters of bread and cheese, jugs of beer and cordial. Erestor nodded approvingly to a few as he took his place behind his lord’s chair at the high table.

He had ordered the linen tablecloth spread upon the dais, bottles of red and white wine alternating every third place, silver utensils and tureens, beeswax candles used only on high days. Every surface gleamed with polish—though several of the housemaids had threatened mutiny if he didn’t quit ‘squawking’ over their shoulders.

Ostentatious, maybe. Expensive, certainly. But Erestor would not hesitate exploiting whatever small advantage they could muster with such company at hand.

His crowning touch was the ceiling to floor tapestry, one that had somehow survived the journey from Lindon and the wreck of Eregion both, hung in an elaborate sweep above the dais, displaying the king’s colors and shield.

Not subtle, but even a lord among Men could fail to miss the point.

Elrond misliked such politicking, but it was only sensible for the lord of the house to display his generosity and his wealth—and subtly invoke the rightness of his position.

A horn rang in the courtyard: a bleating, ceremonious bugling. A clatter announced the arrival of a hearty (and, no doubt, hungry) retinue preceding their lord into the dining hall: a score of knights of Arnor, garbed in white and silver with wings embroidered on their coats and chevroned waves on their sleeves.

All rose as their guest of honor swept in: Adûnarû, eldest brother of Isildur’s wife. Upon his head he bore a filet of silver set with a pale green gem, in his right hand, the Sceptre of Annúminas. Isildur, bereft of other male kin, had given the scepter to his law-brother in trust. Judging by the way Adûnarû clutched it, he expected it wrested from him ere he sat down. The pride — and paranoia — of Númenor had not drowned with Ar-Pharazôn.

First, he went to his sister, who sat apart under a dark awning, garbed in mourning, and dutifully bussed her cheek.

He approached the dais as if he were Elendil stepping from the last ship of Númenor and finding the lands about him more darksome than he’d hoped.

Erestor flicked a bit of imaginary lint from his cuff and held his spine yet stiffer, unable to banish the feeling of being a cadet again, awaiting the dreaded inspection.

Adûnarû’s eye flitted over him, lingered a beat on the tapestry, then seated himself beneath it — at the right hand of the high chair, no less.

Erestor almost choked at the man’s audacity.

Glorfindel, whose accustomed seat that was (though he was, of course, too courteous to say so), promptly redirected himself and claimed the other side.

Elrond entered last as his custom, Valandil in tow, begrudgingly garbed in clothes a prince ought to wear rather than the roughspun he preferred to gallivant about in.

Adûnarû and his knights remained standing after their host joined them. Belatedly, Elrond beckoned to his staff to do likewise as they turned towards the western-facing windows of the hall.

“ _Êphal êphalak îdôn hi-Akallabêth._ Far, far away now is She-that-hath-fallen,” Adûnarû intoned in a carrying, sanctimonious tone. “Yet we remember.”

“We remember,” the hall echoed.

Erestor said nothing. Of all the brass cheek, to remember Númenor in the House of Elrond. As if its fall had had nothing to do with its ruler. Adûnarû’s pride had not waned with the years.

“I have half a mind to show him better manners with the flat of my heaviest waster,” Glorfindel muttered as Erestor bent to top off his glass.

The talk was desultory enough at first as they worked their way through the courses: the usual complaints about the conditions of the Road, the soaring prices of silks and spices, the increasing difficulty of getting any news from Gondor.

Chivet of hare followed the soup, a sauce with gilt sugar-pomegranate seeds followed the hare. Hard-boiled eggs, covered with saffron and flavoured with cloves, a sturgeon cooked in parsley and vinegar, and covered with powdered ginger, a jelly, part white and part red – the kitchens had turned themselves inside out.

Valandil hunched over his plate, speaking little, answering briefly if spoken to. At thirteen summers, he was still very much a boy. Awkward and lanky, most comfortable in his own company…There were few elven children for companionship, and those of his age found his slower manner of learning and mastering things a thing to be pitied. Yet he entertained himself well enough. Erestor had had to chastise him down from the roofs more than once and for teasing the maids.

Elrond loved him dearly.

Did he guess how much rode on this night? Did he mourn the father he did not remember?

Adûnarû leaned back in his seat and swirled his glass of red. “So, boy, let me look at you.”

Valandil raised his eyes to his uncle’s face.

“What are you learning in your studies?”

“A lot of things.”

“Such as?”

Valandil shrugged.

“Your father was an excellent jouster. Do you ride?”

“I don’t like horses.”

Adûnarû raised an eyebrow. “And what of arms? Have you found the one that suits you best?”

“I’m training with a waster still.”

“A little old for that, aren’t you? You should have a proper weapon by now.”

“He has his full growth coming,” Glorfindel said, sighting down his fork at Adûnarû as down the edge of a blade.

“Mmm.”

“He is very well-read in the histories. I even took him up into the old watchtower to show him the ledgers there taken from Beleriand,” Elrond said.

“Yes, well, Isildur would have preferred a soldier to a scholar.”

Erestor hastily beckoned to the servers who snapped to bear out the cook’s marvel of a soltetie to the dais: a cake crafted in the shape of a great Númenorean ship. Its sails billowed and wafted as if in an actual sea breeze.

“Very pretty,” Adûnarû remarked with scarcely a glance, slipping a mouthful of bloody civet between his teeth.

Before Glorfindel could succumb to an attack of apoplexy, Erestor announced the serving of brandy and dessert in the solar.

****

The plums rested in their dishes of rose-water, barely touched and bloody-looking.

The solar was dim, the fireplace casting a flickering glow across the polished sideboard and silver candlesticks.

Too dark. But they had spared no expense at the table.

Elrond sat with his back to the fire, his hands steepled together, a man waiting.

Adûnarû stood before the fire, a forearm braced on the mantelpiece in a pose at once presumptuous and thoughtful.

Another fellow, one Erestor did not know, had preceded them and taken up a place in the corner seat.

Adûnarû gestured to him vaguely. “My man of business, Imrazôr.”

He had dressed in fine clothes but something in his swart, pointed face with his ragged black hair made Erestor think of a pale stone someone had kicked over, revealing dirt and worms beneath.

“In truth, we had not expected you,” Elrond said when no one spoke. “We had no time to send messages for we only just learned of the news—”

“No matter. I Saw it. And I have things I wish to say to you, my lord, that are not meant for all ears.” He looked pointedly at Erestor, who had stayed near the door in case his lord had need of him. “Is your man to remain?”

“If you wish it, my lord, I will go.”

Elrond did not acknowledge the remark.  

“‘My man,’” he said with just the barest edge in his mild voice, “you may speak before as freely as before me. His loyalty and discretion both are beyond reproach.”

Adûnarû grunted but did not argue. “I do not need to tell you that the loss of the king is a sore blow. Nor shall I remind you that his only remaining kin were only left in your care until he could return to collect them. Now that he cannot… things must be decided.”

“Indeed, they must.”

“I will be frank. I have come to take the boy with me. If there is any hope of making a suitable king of him, it must done soonest. He has remained long enough in these elvish halls.”

Erestor frowned.

“Valandil was a babe in swaddling still when we left for the war,” Elrond said.

“And little does he resemble his father. He is almost a Man as is measured by our people. Yet he might as well still be clinging to his mother’s apron strings. Now, Elendur— _there_ was a Man. Even Ciryon, the wastrel, was forward in arms.”

“It takes more to make a king than a strong sword arm. Valandil has compassion and wisdom for all his youth. You have to get to know him.”

Adûnarû kept his eyes fixed on Elrond. “The king’s kin are not the only thing in your keeping. The heirloom of the King should be kept by the King’s house, not the Elves.”

This Erestor could not bear. “The Elves have preserved the line of Isildur. Which is more than Isildur himself could manage in his pride. You would not have a kingship to claim but for my lord and his family. So I suggest you speak with greater respect.”

“Will you let a serving man speak thus to me?”

Elrond, looking wearier than Erestor had ever seen him, raised his head. “You are right. Valandil is your blood-kin. And we never intended to withhold him from his father or his duty. He should go with you. But my heart misgives me. The road between here and Annúminas is long and not wholly bereft of the Enemy’s servants.”

“A boy should know the needs of his people and the manner of their lives,” Adûnarû insisted. “He has had enough coddling. A little danger on the road will teach him better. And I will look after him.”

Like a snake looks after the chicks, Erestor thought.

“I will leave in two days’ time. I will expect his things readied by then.” With that, Adûnarû stalked from the room, his ‘man of business,’ a silent shadow at his shoulder.

Elrond remained by the fire, unspeaking for a long time with eyes shut. Only the flex of his hands on the armrests betrayed the depth of his discomposure.

“Can I fetch you anything, my lord?” Erestor asked when the fire had almost burned itself down.

When no reply came, he bowed though Elrond had not opened his eyes and made to take his leave.

“Erestor.”

Erestor stopped with his hand on the latch.

“I would show you something. It is not for all eyes just yet. But if you would spare a moment…”

“Of course, my lord.”

Elrond fished a key from some inner pocket of his robes and unlocked the high cabinet in the corner of the room.

From it he withdrew an oaken casket with a metal hasp which yielded at the flick of a fingernail.

On a blue velvet cushion sat the silver filet and the white gem of Silmarien crafted at the height of Númenor’s skill and wealth. It absorbed the dim ruddy light in the room and flung it back in a dozen, dazzling points of light. Now green as summer grass. Now orange and umber as dragonfire. Now pale as winter stars.

Erestor had to remind himself to breathe out. “Adûnarû spoke of an heirloom. I did not realize Isildur had left the Elendilmir, too, in your keeping.”

“I had it commissioned for Valandil. Though I had not imagined he would wear it so soon.”

“If he is permitted to wear it at all, you mean.”

“Hmmm. What say you to Adûnarû’s council?”

“Council? The man is a snake. If he takes Valandil we will never see the boy again.”

“Yet he is the boy’s kin. We cannot withhold him.”

“There may be another way. There is another I have not heard speak who might, at the very least, claim kinship with the boy as well as regency of the realm…”

“I have heard this song before. It is my right, you would say, to claim the regency, nay, even the kingship, to unite Elves and Men, once more... The truth is, Erestor, most would not wish it. The war withered the flower of the Eldar to its root, and the valor of Isildur and Elendil went to dust with them.”

“Then now is the time more than ever to bring them closer together, to bind them under one ruler.”

The words struck a shadow across Elrond’s face. “I do not wish to argue it now.”

“You never do.”

More than once Elrond had cursed the ill-luck that plagued the Noldor kings. He would not add his name to that scroll in light of their current straits nor bear the responsibility for the fate and folly of Men — not as their king anyway. He would dare nothing. And yet in his place, Erestor could not say he would have done differently. Far easier to urge a man to change than change yourself.

Elrond snapped the hasp shut, the room darkening at once as if clouds had scudded across the moon, and relocked the cabinet. “Come. Help me ready for bed.”

****

Elrond slipped out of his brocade cotehardie, tossing them across a divan as if well-shed of them. The silver circlet he removed with more care and handed to Erestor to restore to its coffer.

“I knew Valandil would have to leave us. I did not think the time would pass so swiftly,” he said as he sank into the chair before his dressing table.

Here behind closed doors, without the trappings of ceremony, he seemed smaller, diminished. A troubled man who had reached a path in his life he had not prepared himself for.

Erestor leaned his cane against the footboard and slid his hands into the thick, mahogany mane, easing the clips free and letting them fall. “So it is with Men, I suppose. They mark time more swiftly than we, but in their presence, we feel it pass, my lord.”

The tension in Elrond’s shoulders eased little by little as Erestor gathered up his hair, brushing out the tangles of the day, plaiting it in a long coil to make the next day’s work a little easier. His fingers worked sure and steadily, the familiar evening ritual soothing for them both after the jangled twists and turns of the day.

Some things, at least, remained the same.

“You may dispense with the ‘my lord,’ old friend, for goodness’ sake.”

“Old habit, I’m afraid, my…friend.”

Even now, they readily and with just a touch of self-delusion slipped back into their old days, their old roles. As if nothing had happened. Some days, especially with the fire low as a sooty lantern across Elrond’s face, he could almost imagine nothing had.

Though more accustomed to leather and cuirass than silk and samite, Erestor’s fingers began to work free the buttons to the slightly damp undershirt. Deliberate. Careful. One by one by one.

Once, in more desperate days, when the need to feel something other than battle’s whipsaw of rage and terror and heady exhaustion, he had applied himself to his lord’s buttons with such fumbling haste, three had popped off and flown across the room. Elrond, standing in only his ruined shirt, had laughed and laughed.

When he hesitated midway down, Elrond grazed his elbow, a featherlight touch, that only served to deepen the enchantment spun by the warmth radiating from his shirt, the sweetness of the sandalwood oil he dabbed behind his ear.

“I was glad to have you at my side tonight. More than glad,” he continued, the pad of his thumb tracing idle arcs against the nap of Erestor’s sleeve, the low timbre of his voice blending with the muted rustle of the fire. “It was almost as we were of old.”

His eyes asked, as they did every now and again.

Once, Erestor would have answered their beckon with more than a look.

But he knew better. The morning, reasserting reality with its advent, would witness him extracting himself from the bewitchment of eiderdown and warm limb. The light just touching the casement would see him lifting his thigh from the mattress with both hands, so he could swing one foot to the cold floor. The hall shadows might conceal his slinking out, but not the betraying tap by which all knew his footfall now.

Too much time had passed and brought with it too many complications.

Too many shadows lay across his soul now. He had already asked too much of this man to dare claim more. Even freely offered.   

Erestor averted his eyes, bent for his cane. “I had never known a man who cared so for the state of his clothes and cloak in such a hell. You were so fastidious, I sometimes imagined dust and blood dared not alight on you.”

He had meant it in jest. But somehow the mirth hadn’t quite made it. Instead, an unexpected bitterness had emerged, full of teeth.

Elrond let go his hold as if stung. “I was the King’s herald. The men looked to me for example. It heartened them to see their captains unbowed even after so long.”

_Captains may have remained unmarked and unbowed. Their men were not._

But Erestor shook his head as much to silence that rancorous voice as to appease Elrond. The cane, straighter and steadier than his knees, thumped the floor once. “Forgive a churl his ill temper, my lord. You deserve better from me than hard words. A greater debt I cannot repay.”

“It is not a matter of debt, and you know it.”

Yes, he knew it.

Elrond lifted his hand almost as if to touch him but let it fall. “Once, on a time, you were not so burdened. You laughed. It has been long since I have heard you laugh.”

“There is work to be done.”

“Surely some, at least, will keep until morning.”

“No. It won’t.”

Elrond cocked his head in that attentive way he had when facing down a stubborn problem. “Are you sleeping any better?”

Erestor had learned to recognize that carefully cultivated, overly solicitous tone in the field tents of the rear lines.

And if you were stubborn about answering, they assumed you were lying and dosed you with one of their more nauseating draughts.

“Some.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “At night, it…” He made a vague gesture over his leg.

“Some…things…may make the pain feel worse than it is. You never did let me look at it after—After.”

“There was no need. It had healed as much as it ever would.”

A log crumbled in the grate with an alarming snap, scattering embers onto the marble below.

They both looked at it until the embers flickered and went out.

Erestor stirred first. “It’s late. I must see that the doors are barred, and the fires banked.”

“Of course. I won’t keep you.”

The draft down the corridor chilled him even through his jacket, rousing gooseflesh on his arms and neck. “Goodnight, my lord.”

The silence and the tap of his stick damned him with every other step.


	3. Shadows Fall

The door opening sent the man jerking away from the solar’s high cabinet.

Erestor stopped on the threshold, instincts prickling. “Forgive the intrusion,” he said in his politest tones, the one he reserved for those intruding. “But this room is private, sir, unless Lord Elrond himself is present.”

Adûnarû’s man of ‘business’ offered him a soft, conciliating smile. “Apologies. I didn’t realize.”

He didn’t take the hint either, half an eye wandering back to the cabinet.

Erestor’s hand tightened on the handle of his cane. “What sort of ‘business’ do you conduct for your master, if I might inquire?”

“He’s not my master. I am no liveried serving man. My _employer_ pays me to protect what’s his.” Going to the sideboard, he uncorked the decanter and held it up in offer. “Care for one?”

“No…thank you.”

He poured himself a measure of brandy with the smug assurance of an able-bodied man who knew full well Erestor could not carry him out. (Though Erestor had half a mind to brain him anyway and go find Glorfindel to heave him out, scene or no.)

“It’s a pretty place, this,” Imrazôr said. “A fine little burrow. I had thought your kind always lived in white towers. That’s what all the old stories say.”

Though Imrazôr’s eyes appealed with almost liquid guilelessness, his hands belied.

Sometimes Erestor felt he’d spent a lifetime—maybe two—watching men’s hands (before he paid attention to their legs.) Eyes might reveal one’s soul, but the hands revealed purpose. And on the field of battle — or in other measures — they were what mattered.

Adûnarû’s ‘man of business’ tapped a restless tattoo against his thigh with the air of a man interrupted. His palms and fingertips were worn as dog’s paws. The proper callouses in all the right places. The tip of the forefinger on his right hand — the blade hand — was shorn off at the first knuckle. Not a fresh wound.

“You were a fighting man,” Erestor said.

Imrazôr followed Erestor’s gaze to his hand and held it up as if for closer inspection. “I understood you fought in the war your own self.”

“I did, yes.”

“Get that on the field then?”

Erestor braced his cane on the floor between his feet. “The perils of too sprightly a springle-ring.”

Imrazôr let out a bray of laughter.

Erestor allowed himself a small, tight smile that had nothing of mirth in it. “If you wish to speak of war records, I would be quite happy to introduce you to our archivist. He has a number of tomes on the subject.”

“What’s the fun of reading when you can ask one who stood on the field? They know better than any book.” He scratched the bristles under his chin. “You in that mess at Gorgoroth? They give you a medal for it?”

The mocking edge in his words flashed up like a spark from a burning log. Erestor stiffened, his hands and lips gone cold and tingling, but the spark sank as suddenly as it had sprung.

Imrazôr offered him an easy smile. “Fair enough. Don’t like to speak of it myself. Nasty business. Never quite know when it’s over.”

“When your enemy is vanquished,” Erestor said, the words shaping the air but not quite emerging full-fledged.

Imrazôr considered this with a sideways sort-of-smile. When Erestor continued to say nothing, he added with a swirl of his glass, “There is one thing about the war I miss. It was simple. You knew where you stood. There wasn’t all this confusion over politics and pandering to high folk. What for? I’m not a political man. No patience for it. So maybe it’s my own misunderstanding. But the way I see it, if a job has to be done, I’ll do it. Duty that’s all. And that’s all there is.”

 _No, that’s_ not _all there is_ , Erestor wanted to say around his mouthful of heart.

Faint and far off, as if in a dream, the bell began to toll out the hour.

Nine chimes. The mercy stroke.

“Nine bells. It is my task to bank the fires now, so unless you wish to find yourself sitting in the dark, I suggest you take a candle with you to bed,” he said, injecting a hard note into his voice he hadn’t had to use since the war. “And if I find you here again, uninvited, I will have you escorted out.”

“All right, all right, don’t get your hair in a knot. I’m going.” He drained his glass and set it on the sideboard. His shoulder brushed against Erestor’s as he left.

The ripple of it went through him like a sword slash.

Perhaps, he should have sent for Glorfindel after all.

He shut the door in the man’s wake and, as an afterthought, withdrew his keys from his belt. If it took him two or three tries to fit the key in the lock and twist, the key was firmly to blame.

****

For the first time in nine years, he took a bottle of brandy from the cellar without bothering with the inventory.

Gwîndir would likely note the lack, but he truly was a gentleman and told no tales.

He didn’t even take a glass of wine with dinner these days — and the brandy dropped him effortlessly into a trough of sleep.

But he woke, gasping, the sour taste of sulfur-fumes in the back of his throat and a blinding darkness crawling across his eyes. The screams of Gorgoroth still echoed, following him into the room until he flung off the damp blankets and set his feet on the cold, steady floorboards of his garret room.

He contemplated the depleted-looking brandy bottle on his bedside table but didn’t like the lacquer at the bottom of his glass. It turned his stomach.

Flashes of the dream lurked in the corners: the rat at his breast, its sharp, little claws digging into the meat of his shoulder, its naked tail lashing his neck. The faint impression of a stag in the distance draped in purple.

His thigh was aching fiercely, and only when he flexed his hand did he feel his nails. He let go and raked both hands through his hair, trying to breathe his heart back into rhythm.

The light, still thin and watery, cast a silver blade across his knees. He eased himself to his feet, the change in position bringing a sudden awareness of the heaviness in his bladder.

The house was quiet, the hall completely dark— _dark as ashes, dark as a battlefield_ , that cool, little voice whispered—as he crossed to the garderobe.

Returning after to the threshold of his room, he paused, heart lurching.

A shadow-figure, that terrible, familiar shape, raised its bashed-in head towards Erestor.

There was bright blood on one cheek. The head caved on one side, rendering the formally handsome face a desperate portrait of itself.

A hand rose. It was the raised hand, the beckoning appeal in it, not the blood that made Erestor shut his eyes tight and press both fists to his forehead, cursing himself that a dream could cow him like a child with a night-terror.

The dark behind his closed lids shifted and swirled. His lids felt transparent. He became convinced the shadow-figure had moved nearer from its place on the bed. As a child, he had played games where you couldn’t move if the seeker’s eyes were on you, but once they’d turned away—

He forced his eyes wide.

Only the moonlight shone on the dented pillow now—that thin blade sharpened to a wicked spike by the angle of the window.

He could not bring himself to lay in that bed again tonight, or even retrieve his cane from beside it.

Retreating back into the hallway, he made for the servant’s staircase.

It was too early yet for the maids. At least, he could start tea without being disturbed. Leveraging a hand against the wall for balance, he worked his way down the stairs.

He was not quite at the end of the stair when his foot came down on something ( _not stone_ ). His stomach lurched as if he’d missed a step going down ( _but he hadn’t, he_ hadn’t), and his bad leg gave.

His face was pressed against the dusty floor at the bottom of the stair, a sickening pain spreading from his nose all the way to the back of his head, shooting through both temples. He breathed himself through it before levering himself up. A sluice of wet warmth spilled down his upper lip and over his teeth and chin, filling his mouth with an iron tang.

Groaning, he sat up, gingerly feeling his face. When he reached his nose, a hot stab greeted him, and the world swirled around once.

After some little time, he managed to get shakily to his feet and fetched a rag for his streaming nose. It took him even longer to search out a candle and longer still for his trembling hands to still enough to light it. He hadn’t trembled since the night after Gorgoroth, and he roundly cursed both candle and flame for their dereliction of duty before one caught the other alight.

If one of the maids had left a bundle of laundry at the foot of the stairs, he’d—

It wasn’t laundry.

Not even close.

The candle fell from his nerveless fingers and went out but not before its glow revealed the shock of silver hair, two, pale points like the play of light over river stones sunk in the deep mud of the Bruinen, and the unnatural angle of the neck, a tiny little lump sticking up underneath the chin quite out of place.

In the darkness, near where the stairs would be, a breath like a sigh, a rattle in the lungs.

Men with their legs crushed made that sound. Men with their chests bashed in, with sword lengths through them made that sound. Always it heralded the nurse cutting towards the cot, that would lie empty before the hour was out.

A humming started up behind his eyes. Not the tinny hum of blood sometimes heard if you held your breath too long, but an angry black swarm echoing behind his skull, flashing across his vision. For a moment, everything swirled brown and grey.

He lowered himself to the floor, fumbling to grasp at something, something to ground him before the world went away. He found a table leg and clutched it the way a shipwrecked mariner catches hold of a spar. He clung on grimly until splinters dug into the meat of his palm and fingers.

Those are not _his_ eyes, he told himself over and over. They are not. They are not. They are not.

Even so, the word sprang from his mouth as it had in war.

“Cyll.” It emerged a gargled croak. He coughed, spat into the rag, and tried again. “ _Cyll_!”

This time the bellow ran all the way up the stairwell.

It took forever for one of the maids to answer his call. She stopped short at the top of the steps, all eyes and hair and stupidly gaping mouth. “Sir?”

“It’s Adûnarû,” he said, his voice a thing apart from himself, the words spooling out into the distance. “It’s Adûnarû.”


	4. “My Worst Fight with My Worst Enemy.”

Almost shoulder deep in char, Erestor raked at the coals from last night’s fire in the solar. Though he had found nothing but crumbled ash and flakes of unburnt wood, a spark _had_ been in there. The floor was good stone, but the roof and the furniture… It would burn like—

That acrid taste in his mouth again.

He straightened, seized by a fit of coughing so hard his face hurt.

“You know there are scullery maids to do that,” observed a voice that immediately prickled Erestor’s nerves.

Blinking watering eyes, he glanced over his shoulder at the tall figure in the doorway. Naturally, Glorfindel would be the one to hunt him down.

“They are slow today.”

Such work was more suited to a scullery maid, true, but it soothed him. Work for his hands.

Glorfindel eased into the room, quite unlike his usual boisterous entrance and flopped into an armchair, crossing one ankle neatly over the other. “Oh, it is wrong to feel so tired so early in the day.”

When Erestor made no reply, he began to drum his fingers against the arm of the chair, an arrhythmic, restless, relentless tapping. Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap. Tap, tap—tap, tap. Tap-tap-tap.

“Will you stop that? My head is splitting.”

Glorfindel ceased but only to crane forward over his knees. Erestor resolutely buried himself back into the cinders, clawing at the stubborn ones at the rear with the shovel.

The unnatural quiet, even more than his usual endless chatter set Erestor’s teeth on edge. He scraped ever more savagely at the ash despite the dust and clanging echoing blackly through his head.

“Erestor.”

If only they would leave him alone for a breath more, he would find that spark.

Glorfindel’s hand closed on the wrist holding the shovel. “Erestor. You’re going to pry up the stones themselves in a moment.”

Ignoring the grip on his wrist and those searching eyes, he snarled. “Is there some purpose to this visit or did you just come to plague me?” The ash brought his voice out rasping. “Or is it possible you truly have no task that requires your _immediate_ attention, herth-master?”

“What? Do I need an excuse to plague you now?” Glorfindel said, but a new sharpness edged his tone Erestor had never heard before. He relaxed his grip. “So. Are you going to tell me about it, or do I have to ask?”

“Tell you what?”

“Why your face looks as if someone applied a meat hammer to it. Oh, and the dead man at the bottom of our kitchen stairs.”

Erestor eased himself to a seat on the floor, his leg seizing at the effort. How long had he been kneeling? He gripped the quivering muscle, willing it still. “He fell. I’m sure it was an accident. It’s unfortunate. But hardly cause for—What?”

A flicker of alarm rustled behind Glorfindel’s stare. He sat back. “Yes, I daresay it was. An accident.”

But there was something else. A knot of dread settled in the pit of Erestor’s stomach. “Duplicity has never been your strong suit, Glorfindel. Out with it. There _is_ a purpose to this visit.”

Glorfindel unhooked his ankle from the settee and clasped his hands between his knees. “I have been summoned to fetch you. To the council chambers.”

“What for?”

“There are some… questions.”

“‘Questions?’”

“About last night.”

“I have a lot of work to do.”

Glorfindel was quiet, but every muscle in his body had gone taut.

So, it wasn’t a request then.

Glorfindel picked up Erestor’s cane from beside the settee. He did not relinquish it right away. “Why didn’t you come to me? To Elrond?”

Erestor shook his head, kept shaking it until Glorfindel spoke again.

“You never did tell me what came between you.”

“No. I didn’t.” He passed a hand across his face. “Forgive me, Glorfindel. For earlier. I was a little overwrought.”

“Done. But what I shan’t easily forgive is you helping yourself to Gwîndir’s excellent stock without me, you churl.” Despite the jest, his eyes were deeply worried. “That’s unlike you.”

Erestor took his stick. “I’m fine.”

Glorfindel let his cocked eyebrow speak his disbelief for him. but thankfully pressed him no further. “They are waiting.”

****

Strange to find the Hall of Fire so silent. So without music and laughter. Even the fire had been banked low and not rekindled from the smell of stale ashes that wafted out the door.

Glorfindel’s presence was ‘not required’ the doorwarden said with unusual insistence, so Erestor entered alone.

With his cane to announce him, he made his way down the length of the hall, steering as close to the center as he could.

Every few steps, a breath of light would warm his shoulders from the high windows above, but that only deepened the chill that followed.

He halted just short of the dais under the eyes of the full council: Elrond in the center, Trastion and the others to his left. The only seat at his right was occupied by the queen, now bereft of husband, sons, and brother. At her shoulder stood one of Adûnarû’s knights, a grim fellow with a sword at his hip—though never before had Elrond allowed steel in the hall.

The only object on the dais was a bundle wrapped in a white cloth.

“I haven’t seen the full council convened since the war,” he said into the silence like tossing pebbles into a depthless pool. “I pray that isn’t so. I only have one leg to spare.”

Only Elrond smiled though he aimed it at the surface of the table.

“Would you like a chair?” asked the queen. The black of her mourning garb leeched all color from her fine features.

“Thank you, my lady.”

The knight fetched him a chair from the rear of the hall, and the entire time, Erestor remained under the still-silent scrutiny of the council. The hand on his stick grew slick. When the chair thumped behind him, he nearly startled.

Trastion stood. “You know why you have been summoned here, Erestor.”

He rolled the penultimate ‘r’ with a distinctly Quenyan burr that reminded Erestor all too viscerally of his father.

“No. I cannot say I do as no one has deigned to apprise me. Councilor,” Erestor added, cursing the sharp tongue that spoke too often before his thought with his blood riled.

Trastion’s lips pressed into a thin line but curved, just a little, at the edges. “You are aware that his lordship Adûnarû of Annúminas—”

“I know the man.”

“He was found dead early this morning. By you.”

“Yes.”

“And it is on this little matter that we would like a few things cleared up.” Trastion approached his chair, forcing Erestor to crane his neck and fight the urge to stand.

“Those are some nasty bruises,” the councilor observed with feigned solicitude.

Erestor could only imagine how the bright sunlight in the hall was treating his face. He hadn’t looked.

“How did you come by them?”

“I tripped.”

“On the back staircase leading to the kitchens?”

“Yes. It was dark.”

“What were you doing there at that hour?”

“I went to start the tea. I…couldn’t sleep.”

“Is that your common custom to rise before even the scullery stirs?”

“It is my common custom to ensure all is in order.” He had intention whatsoever of telling them that dreams had driven him from his bed at that hour.

“And was it? In order?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Was Trastion truly so obtuse or playing some inscrutable sort of game? “There was a dead man in the kitchens.”

“How did he get there?”

“I haven’t the foggiest.”

Trastion smoothed a hand through his hair. “So, after you found him, what did you do?”

“I called for help. One of the maids came.”

“Which maid?”

“It was—” He stopped, blanking.

“Yes?” Trastion prompted. “Surely, you have worked long enough in this household to know the names of your staff?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then what was her name?”

He could see her face — all eyes, hair still ruffled from her pillow. The exact expression of her mouth at what probably was an extraordinary sight. He could call up the very essence of her in a breath. Everything except her name…

“I don’t…remember,” he said at last. Why couldn’t he remember?

“Silmariel. And when she was called before us today, she said she had just woken and was coming down to start the servants’ tea. She never heard a thing. Much less a call for help.”

“Lot of early risers for tea,” Erestor murmured.

“What she _did_ find was Adûnarû’s body at the bottom of the staircase and you a short way from it. All over blood.”

“I told you I tripped. I suppose I tripped over him.”

“She said you were sharp, strangely so, and ‘most unlike himself,’ I believe were her words. That you left suddenly without explanation.”

“I was going to fetch my lord and Glorfindel.”

 _Look at me_ , Erestor willed. _Look up. You know I speak the truth_.

“And did you?”

“Didn’t I?” He was sure he had. He had made for the east wing direct from the kitchens.

_Why didn’t you come to me? To Elrond?_

The solar door had been open. Which was strange, because he’d sworn he’d locked it.

“I was going to. But I’d forgotten to bank the fire in the solar. I wanted to make it…tidy…before...”

“So, a man — a lord and guest — is murdered in your lord’s house. And your first thought, the very first thing that goes through your mind, before you tell anyone, or fetch help _,_ is the fireplaces weren’t _tidy._ ”

In the urgency of the moment, tidying the fireplace had seemed like the only possible — the only sane — thing to do. But how could he explain without sounding either lunatic or guilty? It made no sense now, of course.

Speech and silence both damned him.

“Adûnarû wasn’t the kind of man to go make his own tea by all accounts,” Trastion said. “There was no reason for him to be anywhere near the kitchens at all with his rooms on the other side of the house. What was he doing there?”

“You would have to ask him.”

“I am asking _you_ ,” Trastion said. “I heard you had argued with his man of business.”

Had they haunted his every step last night? “You are misinformed. It wasn’t an argument. He was in my lord’s private apartments. I asked him to leave.”

“And shared a drink with him instead.”

“He drank. I didn’t.”

“No, you took yours later as I understand it.”

“You searched my chambers?”

“What did you speak of with him?”

“Nothing of import. He remarked on the quality of the brandy and the welcome he had received at the house.”

“And then?”

“He left.” He adjusted his seat. “Look, if you think I bashed Adûnarû’s head in and flung him down the stairs, you are gravely mistaken, and I have no reason why you would think so. I had no quarrel with the man.”

Trastion rounded Erestor’s chair so they faced the assembly together. “You are decorated. Highly respected. We are not accusing you of anything. We are merely trying to understand how such a terrible thing could happen here in our own halls.” His overly-placating smile said otherwise. “You fought in the War did you not? Albeit, only a few years.”

The question took him aback. “A lot of men fought in the War.”

“You killed men then, didn’t you?”

“Only when it was necessary.”

“And that is how you came by your injury?”

“I did not ‘come by’ it. It’s not a coin chucked in the road. Or, if so, it is of little worth.”

“This is no laughing matter.”

“I am not laughing. And I fail to see what that has to do with any of this.”

“Please answer the question.”

His hand had clamped into a vice about his cane. He willed it to relax, finger by finger. “My worst fight with my worst enemy. I lost. And as I said, if I killed, I did so only when it was _necessary_.”

 _Not strictly true_ , that irritating little voice spoke up. But what else _could_ he say? Admit it was self-inflicted? That would merely urge more questions. They would ask when. They would ask why.

And that…that he could not tell.

Trastion’s keen stare tracked over his face, devouring. “So what happened at Gorgoroth was necessary, was it?”

The question took him so by surprise, he could only stare, his heart thumping fit to burst from his chest. That was the second time in as many days someone had mentioned Gorgoroth. He was beginning to think it was on purpose. Rattling him.

“Some of my esteemed colleagues would not recall that particular theater,” Trastion said. “A squad of Sindar men were bivouacked there the first three years of the war. One night, a resupply of Númenorean troops came up to relieve them. The Sindar mistook them for enemies—apparently the message that was to relay their coming was lost. They were slaughtered almost to a man. Including the king’s own son.”

Erestor bolted to his feet, overturning the chair. Though whether he would have lunged at Trastion or run for the door, he never found out.

Suddenly, the queen’s hulking knight was at his shoulder, set the chair upright with a no-nonsense clack. “Sit down, my man.”

Every muscle in his body coiled with the urge to knock the man down. He sat.

Trastion had left out a few things.

The company of Sindar had been there for three _years_ when they’d been promised three months at most. The constant smoke and brume wafting up from the fissures turned almost everyone sick and dizzy, and you never got used to it. You would have mistaken your own brother in such conditions. The enemy harried them constantly—their shelter had been little more than a hillock. In the end, you had to go mad just to not lose your mind.

What did they know? He owed these men no explanations for his actions. When had they last served any closer than an arrow’s flight to the enemy? When had they last felt the lifeblood of their friend on their hands? It had been an accident, Gorgoroth. Too much smoke. Too many men. Things moving too quickly.

Even in his own mind, it sounded weak, an excuse to explain away carelessness, or laziness, or, worse, malice aforethought. There had been more than a little butting of heads and not only against the enemy. Men had no wish to fight under the Elves’ banner, not even all Elves recognized Gil-galad’s leadership.

Such posturing had cost lives in the end.

There was nothing he could possibly say that would make them understand.

Only Elrond, and he refused to lift his eyes more than an inch from the table.

Breathing himself into calm, he said in a passably steady voice. “There is a difference between killing men in battle and killing a man in cold blood.”

“But it changes a man, doesn’t it? After you fight for your life, after you have slain men with your own hands, it makes you feel powerful doesn’t it? Life and death cease to mean very much.”

“On the contrary, it matters even more,” Erestor said. “Furthermore, he was a guest in our house. And by the laws of hospitality, under our protection.”

“Did you not tell me the other day that you would do anything for your lord?”

“Yes. I did.”

“This man, Adûnarû, was—by some accounts—disagreeable. He had threatened to take away the heir of Isildur, from the home he loved, from his foster-father. You were not keen on that were you?”

“Those were weightier matters than my pay is worth.” The heat receded from his face and hands.

“The fact remains. Adûnarû was going to change things, change things in a way that would hurt one you… served. I know the loyalty a servant may have for his master. There would be no blame.”

No blame, indeed? They were blaming him already. Half of them looked as if they already believed Trastion’s words. And still, Elrond said nothing. Nothing in his defense.

_He knows though. He knows what you’re capable of when your blood is riled._

_I’m not that man anymore._

_No?_

His fingers stroked the handle of his cane. By now, the smoothness of the wood was as familiar to him as the skin on the back of his hand.

Trastion turned to the dais and, with a flourish, uncovered the thing the white cloth had concealed. “Do you recognize this?”

About the length of his forearm, the blue-white steel glittered, harsh and hungry. Erestor knew it even better than his cane. “Yes. It is mine. I haven’t worn it in years.”

He’d buried that old knife in the watchtower along with the other relics and would not have mourned if he’d never seen it again.

“It was found in Adûnarû’s back.”

Like missing a step, Erestor’s heart tumbled over.

He wrapped his fingers more tightly around the handle and squeezed. Looking up towards the dais, he felt as if he were blind, blind and groping and casting an appeal that might never be answered.

“I have told you all I know. My lord, if there are no more questions, may I be excused? There is work to be done today after all, and I must see to the maids getting on despite what happened.”

For the first time, Elrond raised his eyes, but the expression behind them was nothing Erestor could interpret anymore. He nodded once. “You may go.”

Erestor held out his hand. For all that he loathed the very sight of the thing he hated more seeing it in Trastion’s greedy hands. “If you have no more need of my weapon, my lord…”

Trastion looked ready to object, but Elrond nodded.

His fingers closed around the sheath, heavy as a millstone at the end of his arm.

He took his leave as quickly as dignity and pride would allow.

Trastion did not bother lowering his voice. “Do you truly think that wise, my lord? I know this must be distressing for you. But we must let our minds, not our hearts, rule us in this hour. The slain’s knights still dwell here, and there are greater repercussions if they discover their lord was murdered by one of his host’s own household. We need to—”

The door shut behind him and blessedly silenced the rest of the rest.

****

Nerves jangling, he stalked back to his room, taking the back passages and avoiding the few servants scuttling about.

Once the door to his room closed behind him, he sagged against it, leaning his head against the cool, precise-set planks. At last, a bit of quiet and space. He needed to _think._

He stripped out of his sooty clothes and washed his arms and chest and neck. More carefully, his face. The water he rinsed the cloth in acquired a faint, reddish tinge.

In the sliver of mirror tacked above the basin, he scrutinized himself. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d actually looked at any length in a mirror.

That was a long eyebrow.

Cold water on the back of his neck dispersed the last of lingering heat from the-accusation-that-wasn’t.

“This is no time to lose your temper,” he said to the mirror.

 _He all but accused me of murder. Forgive me if I find that_ distressing _. And Elrond said not a word._

“He must be impartial in this matter. He cannot appear to sway in your favor. Then Annúminas would be in its rights to call its own dogs to the hunt. And that would not go well for you.”

That did not make Elrond’s coldness any less comfortless.

He raked both hands through his hair, smoothing his errant forelock back.

Gorgeous.

His mouth quirked wryly.

He shrugged into a clean tunic, his fingertips tender and fumbling over the buttons. A few more scrapes chafed his calf, knee, and hip.

Reluctantly, he sat on the edge of the bed and picked up the knife, turning it over.

In the pale light, a dint in the pommel shone as clear and bloody as a fresh scar as if it had been struck against a stone. Harder than stone.

He let it drop through his fingers. Too many questions. Not enough answers. And, for once in his long life, not enough _time._ Not the way the hounds were circling.

His arm coming down through the dark and the smoke, the swinging blow, the blood.

What was that old adage? _Two men may keep a secret if one of them is dead…?_

His hand fell to his thigh, kneading the crater that was left. The amount of debriding alone, he has lucky to have a leg in the first place.

He’d left the knife in the watchtower. And that door was always locked. The better to keep their more adventurous guests from getting out onto the roof.

A man’s face, split with red, misshapen with it, bestial.

Adûnarû.

No, not him. Another. It was another.

He hadn’t seen his mark until the man stepped into the arc of his swing. It’d been too late by then. The nature of battle had taken its course.

It had been in the watchtower. He hadn’t so much as ventured past the bottommost step save to harry Valandil down.

That didn’t matter. There was his presence in the kitchen. Beside the body. The _discussion_ with Imrazôr. His knife… Trastion would make sure he paid for it, which meant Adûnarû’s men weren’t far behind. Even the worst captain had his loyal followers. They would want someone to blame. If they could blame the Elves, so much the better.

Even if he hadn’t done it.

The taste of ashes in his mouth.

_You know what kind of man you are._

But he was not guilty of this. He was not. And he could still fall.

The thought did not dismay him as much as it should. Only the loss of liberty would be a pity.

Yet, there were other lives caught up in this than his—Valandil’s…and Elrond’s. And whatever else he was, he was a king’s man.

And if there was one thing he was no good at, it was sitting around and wringing his hands when there was work to be done.

Only two men had known of the discussion in the solar last night. And only one would have put Trastion on the scent of Gorgoroth.

Now would be his only chance.

After a moment’s hesitation, he slid his _sigil_ into his belt.

_Better the enemy you know._

 


	5. Of Secrets Kept

The guest wing was empty with everyone at dinner. He passed no one—save a maid with an armful of sheets, and she could hardly fault him for begging off serving at table.

He hoped.

The room Imrazôr inhabited was neat and almost barren as a barracks. He searched as quickly as his leg allowed. He would not have much time, and every moment increased the risk of discovery. The drawers were empty. The closet contained a cloak so threadbare it was practically a rag. Under the pillow, he found a purse with nothing in it.

That was all.

The rest of his things, including boots and coat, were gone.

A chance glance at the fireplace revealed more disconcerting news and a half-burned slip of paper that singed Erestor’s fingers when he plucked it out and gently eased apart the stiffened and blackening vellum.

Erestor scanned the black-etched letters though they blurred his vision and hurt his head, a hard clench growing in the pit of his stomach.

It was a promise of payment and named a meeting place and hour. For a treasure yielded.

He made for the door and checked.

A soldier in blue and white livery stood in the doorway.

Thanks to Glorfindel, he was on general good terms with most of the household troop though he did not know them all. This fellow was young and unfamiliar. And bore a disconcertingly implacable look on his face alongside the blade strapped to his side.

“Is Valandil at table tonight?” he asked.

“Sir. You must come with me.”

“ _Is he at the table_? Yes or no.”

“I…have not seen him, sir.”

“We must hurry then. He—Imrazôr—may already have taken horse and gone.”

“Sir—” The soldier did not move from the doorway.

“ _Listen_ to me. Valandil is missing. There is a paper that says—”

The expression on the guardsman’s face stopped him. It had shuttered tight, the way one regards the man who throws his blade down in the dust and cries that his still-attached arms are gone.

“What is it, soldier?”

“I have been given orders, sir. To escort you to your rooms.”

Erestor frowned. “I know well enough where my rooms are, _ohtar_ , thank you. Your guidance will not be required.”

It took a beat for the pin to drop. “I am aware of that, sir. But my orders are plain. To—”

“ _Escort me to my rooms_. Yes, I heard you plainly the first time. Who gave that order? Surely not your captain.”

“My captain is not the only one I am obliged to obey. Sir.” The guardsmen said, the polish coming off his speech. He cleared his throat.

“Who—?”

“That would be me.” Trastion slid past the solider into the room. “I had a feeling I would find you here with your…comrade.”

“Comrade?”

“He gave you away fairly quickly. If the body had been there in the hall, it would have bled.” Trastion stopped bare paces from him. Smiling.

“You pissant, little viper. Do you truly loathe me so much?”

Trastion canted his head, as if he were considering the question. “You have ducked the law for long and long, Erestor. I stood on that bridge. Seven years. And you ran. Or, rather, limped home. A blade to the foot was it?”

“Thigh. And you were not there.”

The councilman’s voice dropped to a deadly hiss. “I know you paid a small price, if you escaped with your life. Too many men far better than you died on that field. You took the coward’s way out.” Over his shoulder, he added in a louder tone: “I leave him in your keeping, Corporal.”

The blood dropped into Erestor’s hands. Another’s, not his, though they certainly looked like his, drew the _sigil_ from his belt. A chair overturned, sending them staggering into the wall. Erestor knocked the corporal’s reaching arm aside. Pressed the glittering tip of his knife under Trastion’s white, white throat where the tendons flexed.

“Valandil is missing.” Erestor said. He sounded very calm, if a little breathless. “The man who has taken him may already have made his escape since you have delayed me.”

Trastion’s face had drained of color. “You dare assault a senior member of the lord’s council? I will have you dismissed for this.”

“Do so.” Erestor released him so suddenly, he staggered, touching the pinprick of blood under his chin. “A cowardly man—and a guilty one—would have killed you.”

He flicked his eyes towards the soldier who had half-drawn his blade. “Corporal. Will you stand down? Or must I compound my charges with another?”

The guardsman’s face did not alter, but his eyelids flickered, once. “I know of your reputation, Serjeant Major.”

Which one? He didn’t ask, but when he retrieved his coat and cane from the floor, the corporal stood aside.

****

Down the back staircase to the cloakroom, he snatched up his coat and tugged on his gloves.

Further down the hall, light and warmth and the usual complaints of the maids wafted down to him. Beyond even that came the dimmer buzz of conversation in the hall where Glorfindel and Elrond may, perhaps, have noted his absence.

The maids’ voices were growing nearer, their grumblings of food misplaced and coal and ‘higher ups will blame us of course—’

The courtyard door almost knocked him off his feet, thrust inward as if by a swatting hand. Already a sheet of snow layered the cobblestones, flying up in stinging eddies and skirling over his boots.

Ducking his head against the whack of the wind, he set out for the stables.

****

One of the horses was missing.

His own, no more pleased at the prospect of leaving the warm stables than he was the house, proved reluctant to coax out even after he managed to swing his stiff leg over its croup.

Snow was falling fast, obliterating all but a few paces in front of the horse’s hooves. The frozen-iron air cut into his lungs and bit through his cloak and gloves as if it were tissue paper. He couldn’t feel the reins in his hands, and more than once, he had to jerk the horse’s head to keep him from mistaking one of the many falling streams for a clear path.

For a brief time behind them, the windows of the house shone dim then disappeared.

A man wishing to make a quick escape would take the swiftest and most well-known path—though what he hoped to do in the wild after that was beyond Erestor. That would mean the sloping climb up towards the ford of Bruinen. But a clever man, such as Imrazôr, would also know it would be the first path searched once the alarm was raised.

South the valley of Imladris rose to steep pine slopes and even steeper cliffs, but away north the land was still gentle for a while and climbed only gradually, the paths less guarded. And an intrepid — or mad — man might even attempt a crossing. Though the Bruinen never wholly froze, and a fall through the ice would spell certain death this far into the season.

 _Or, you might be entirely wrong, and Imrazôr_ has _gone to the ford anyway, and you will spend a few hours in the bitter cold losing your fingers one by one to frostbite._

“Shut up,” he muttered.

The climb proved agonizingly slow, fighting the buffeting wind and ever-thickening snow. Once or twice he was even forced to dismount and limp beside the horse over a particularly steep, icy patch.

The lamp he had brought cast a bright circle about the snow at his feet. He searched the ground until his eyes ached and a pale ring pulsed around the lamp and still there was nothing, no track, no sign, and no sound but the hustling slip of wind and brittle rush of leaves, plaintive and, not loud, but _felt_ under the wind, like the whisper of old ghosts.

Snow coated his shoulders, the seams of his gloves, his eyelashes, the horse’s mane. The cold penetrated to his bones. He had begun shivering at some point. Couldn’t quite remember when. He should have brought his cloak.

He stopped and let the lamp sag.

And there they were.

Tracks. Brief and almost swept away: the footprints of a man, moving fast. But they were there.

New heat surged through him, and he urged his mount on faster.

At the head of a glen, he dismounted and left his horse at the entrance to a narrow defile. The rocks walls extended for only a few yards and provide little in the way of shelter, but if memory served, the defile opened with the Bruinen on one side and a lee of trees and receding wall that would provide some relief as well as firewood.

His leg thumped with dull pain as he made his way over the tumbled stones. He had not put it through this much in some time. Only once, when he caught sight of the red light flickering ahead, did he touch the hilt of his knife.

Imrazôr’s dark head bent so close to the pile of dead wood he was in danger of falling in it. Though he wasn’t having much luck kindling it between the damp and his trembling hands.

“Give you a hand with that?”

Imrazôr’s head snapped up, bluish lips peeling back in a rictus of a grin. “Would you?”

Erestor crouched on the other side of the kindling, took the flint from the man’s hand. His knife was better steel and struck sparks almost at once. A little coaxing and a murmured word or two set the branches smoking.

Imrazôr laughed and held his hands out towards the flames. “That’s a good trick. You’ll have to teach me that one. It’s colder than a whore’s heart out here.”

“Just need good steel and a little luck that’s all.” Erestor passed back the flint. Beside him lay a battered pack and an even more battered scabbard. Beyond in the lee of the rocks his ‘borrowed’ horse stood with head down.

“That how you found me? Luck?”

“Mostly.”

They sat and watched the fire catch.

“You alone?” Imrazôr cocked an ear towards the rocks as if listening.

“Not for long.” The most exquisite lie in a long career of lies.

Imrazôr must have seen something in his face that gave him away for the pale eyes narrowed. “A man like you doesn’t strike me as the careless sort. Why come up here all by your lonesome—why not spare yourself the trouble?”

“You do not know me.”

“I know more about you than you think.” Imrazôr snapped small bits of kindling between his hands and fed them into the fire though it was already burning well. “Leg hurt?”

Erestor, caught out, stopped kneading his thigh. “I have come for the boy. Valandil.”

A look of smug satisfaction flitted behind Imrazôr’s eyes. He cast to one side of his camp and the other in a mock-sweep of surprise. “He doesn’t seem to be here. I thought you Elves were supposed to be ever-wise and all that rot.”

“What have you done with him?”

“Missing is he?” Imrazôr said. “Probably dead if I know anything of…Adûnarû. Liked boys he did. Probably stashed him under the croft somewhere when you weren’t looking, in some tidy little place where no one will find him but the rats.”

A feverish recklessness seized hold of Erestor, sweat breaking under his coat despite the chill. Something red and hot clawing its way up his throat. When he spoke, his voice was low and waspish. It scarcely sounded like himself at all.

“You once spoke to me of Gorgoroth. As if you had been there.”

“Me and the rest of the 12th company. We were your relief. I was one of the lucky ones.”

Lucky, yes.

“Would you like me to tell you how they died? Your friends? Which ones cringed from the knife? Which ones fought back, fought back so very hard, and it wasn’t enough? Which of them sniveled for their mothers? I could tell you _every_ detail. The wonderful, painful clarity of elven memory.”

Imrazôr sprang to his feet with a rasp of steel, leveling the point of his blade at Erestor’s collar. Then he laughed. “No. No. You won’t have me so easy. Now, that you’re here.” Instead, he picked up Erestor’s stick, gave it an idle twirl.

“I looked for you for a long time, you know. I didn’t do for Adûnarû, if that’s what you’re thinking, though I wouldn’t mind shaking the hand of the one that did. But it was too good an opportunity to pass up. Too easy to get the knife—the knife you used to bash my lord’s head in—and stick it between the cur’s ribs. I rather thought I would need to work harder to convince your…friends.”

“Why?”

For a moment, he didn’t answer. “Because he was my prince. I was the prince’s man. And you took him from me.”

“Anárion.”

The blow rocked him sideways, ears ringing. At least, it had been his fist and not the sword hilt.

“You don’t get to speak his name. Without him, there was _nothing_ left,” Imrazôr snarled. Breathing hard, he let out a sickly little chuckle. Flicking open the catches of his pack he withdrew something that flashed and glittered, throwing a thousand hues across the snow. “But I’ve got myself a pretty piece to retire on now.”

“The Elendimir.”

Another curl of the mouth. Imrazôr tucked it back in, cinched the straps tight and swung if over his shoulder. Then he leveled the blade again. “Get up. Even I won’t run a cripple through where he sits.”

Erestor looked up the length of the blade, unblinking. He made no move. “I have too much blood on my hands already, Imrazôr. If you wish to kill me, then do it. Spare me the walk.”

“I’m not going to kill you. Not yet. At least. You’re going to show me a crossing here.”

“The only crossing is at the ford.”

“That’s a _lie_. There’s always two ways out of anywhere, and I bet you know all of them.”

He knew three, in point of fact. And one, at least, promised an escape of a different sort.

“And if you don’t, I’ll still kill you. And then what hope for the boy? If he is alive?”

Erestor pulled his face into a grimace and tightened his grip on his leg. “If you want me to walk anywhere, I need that.”

Imrazôr dropped the stick into the snow beside him.

“Just keep your hands away from that knife.”

A tug at his belt as Imrazôr relieved him of it accompanied by another prod between the shoulders, this one hard enough to prick through his coat.

“There is a way to cross,” he said. “Follow me.”

The river gleamed in a long, uneven sheet of black ice.

Shoulder blade itching, he shuffled onto the ice, the tips of his boots very dark against its sheen. He let out a breath that spooled into the air and wafted downstream in a ghost of almost-laughter. To still fear falling now.

He eased another step forward. “So, king’s man, what are you now? A soldier-for-hire? And what price did you ask for the heirloom of the man you served? What price for the life of his nephew?”

“Shut up. Everyone has to eat.”

“Yes, and you eat decidedly below the salt. Whose purse, I wonder, will fill your coffers? What do you think they will do with the Elendilmir? Or with Valandil when you give him into their hands? Or did you never ask?”

“I said _shut up_ , Elf. I didn’t do anything to the boy.”

“No, you would have left that to others.”

Another step. A creak.

“Stop.”

Erestor stopped, even his breath. Did he guess?

“Something’s not right,” Imrazôr said, his voice slightly higher than it had been before. The knife against Erestor’s back twitched. “Where are you leading us?”

Though neither of them had moved, another creak, this one deeper, melodious, rumbled through the air. Beneath the onionskin of ice, the river curled and flurried.

 _Down into the dark and deep, there to keep, and then to sleep,_ went sing-songing through his mind for no reason at all.

“Turn around,” Imrazôr snapped, the knife jerking forward so hard Erestor let out a pained hiss. “We’ll find another way.”

“This is the only way,” Erestor breathed.

Everything slowed as he turned on his heel, cane raised, higher than was strictly necessary to support his footing. It plunged down and then _through_ the rotten ice in the middle of the river.

The world went out from under him in a stomach-turning lift.

Cold.

The shock hit him in the lungs like a blade. He sucked in an involuntary breath, got water instead. He kicked, and his head broke the surface of the water.

He _kicked_ , his coat saturated, dragged at him. Thrashing he wrestled his way out of it, still desperately treading water. Gasping and coughing, he hit the rim of ice with his fingers and clung. He got his elbows out of the water, wriggled up a few inches on his belly, and no further.

Somewhere along the bank, a rustle amongst the colorless weeds.

He was alone on the surface of the river.

A strand of hair hung lank against his cheek, flecks of ice threaded it like beads of glass. He forced himself to suck in slow, shuddering breaths, pushing smoke into the air. His legs twitched feebly under the water.

Above him, the stars flickered between the naked branches. The snow had stopped.

His father had crossed the Helcaraxë. He had told young Erestor how it went if you fell through. Soon the cold would take his strength. Then his breath.

_You know what kind of man you are._

But the stars were growing brighter and…nearer?

A glimmer of lights along the bank.

Lanterns. And voices.

He grasped at that thread even as his unfeeling hands lost their hold, and he slid backward.

“It’s not as cold,” he mumbled though they were too far away to hear him. Everything was going far away… “It’s...”

 


	6. Leaving the Shadowlands

At first, nothing entered his mind but the pain of his reawakening limbs: a prickling flush that he forced himself to breathe through, palms braced.

When it subsided enough, he opened his eyes.

A curious amber light, fire or lamplight, advanced and receded across the walls. The earth was hard under his back though what looked like ever warp and weft of cloth in the house had been piled atop him, its weight wonderful.

Had he been relegated to the floor at last?

No…the tent on the Dagorlad had had no beams. Certainly none so dark and carved.

Experimentally, he brought his arm out from under the blankets lifting his arm from under the coverlet. He flexed his fingers and winced. At least, they worked.

“You were lucky.” Wood creaked, and Glorfindel stepped into his line of view, adjusting the heap of blankets he’d displaced.

The firelight thickened the shadows about his eyes. His boots were caked with mud, his cloak and hair damp with melted snowflakes.

“How did I get here?” Erestor asked.

“A truly spectacular rescue by yours truly,” Glorfindel said, brushing back a lock of hair. The skin on the knuckles was broken in a few places. “For which I only ask the payment of two bottles of that fine red. And good thing too. Any longer and we might have had to chip you out. Elrond was fit to flay—that’s nearly both of us he’s lost to a river. He’s beginning to think his choice of location for a sanctuary was unwise.”

The lightness in his voice faltered just a fraction. “You mustn’t frighten us like that.”

“I was trying to make things right,” Erestor murmured, his eyes kept slipping shut. He forced them open. “What of Imrazôr? He was there. He fell through—”

“There was no sign.”

“The Elendilmir—”

“Recovered from the riverbank. How it managed to get there, I haven’t the faintest. I’m afraid your knife is lost though.”

“It is no loss.” Erestor let his head fall back against the pillows. He wanted nothing more than to lie back, shut his eyes and sleep, deeply and without dreams. “What happened to your hand? Not a souvenir of tonight’s misadventure, I hope?”

“Near enough. I thumped that fool Trastion in the mouth. We…had words,” Glorfindel said in answer to his look. “He had some choice things to say regarding…your actions earlier this evening. I told him, ‘That man is a hero. And if you say otherwise, you better damn well have proof of it.’ He responded with a series of rather truculent remarks—none of which I’d care to repeat—and none of which I had patience to listen to.”

“So you _hit_ him.”

“Not my finest moment,” Glorfindel admitted, scrutinizing his knuckles with interest. “But one I find hard to repent of.”

“I do not deserve you for my champion, Glorfindel.”

“I have not been your only champion, though you may not know it.” Glorfindel said. A brocade robe lay draped over the chair. “He has stayed by your side all night. I only now sent him off to take some rest.”

“He is a healer. It is his duty.”

“I do not think it was duty alone that drove him.”

Erestor shifted his face towards the fire. “And…Valandil? What of him?”

“You need to rest. Elrond will skin me as is for telling so much.”

“If you do not tell me, I will simply lie here awake and wondering until I go rouse Elrond to speak with me himself. Damn rest, Glorfindel. He’s a child. There’s no telling what those fiends might have done with him. Did you search the Bruinen?”

“As far as the ford.” But Glorfindel shook his head ere he could ask. “I will take another patrol tomorrow if the weather softens.”

Erestor shut his eyes.

“You mustn’t blame yourself,” Glorfindel told him. “We keep the watch, Erestor. That is our duty. And if some deeds happen on the field that should not, and we lose ones we should not, that does not lie on your shoulders.”

 _If not mine, then whose?_ “Are we still speaking of Valandil?”

“I think you should speak with Elrond.”

And say what? “I always speak with him. I am his valet. Or was.”

“What foolishness is that?” Glorfindel flung a few more logs on the fire and stirred them into place with the poker.

“I expect to be dismissed. After tonight. One can hardly have a rumored murderer for a valet, and I can hardly trust a man who would believe me one.”

Glorfindel hung the poker up. “Is that what you think?”

“He, of all men, knew what I was guilty of. And what I suffered because of it. I was all but upon the rack under Trastion, and he said _not a word_ in my defense. Heaven forfend, he should sacrifice a sliver of his precious impartiality.”

“There was a reason he had to keep silence.” Glorfindel sat with his back to the hearth and stretched out his legs. “I had received a missive from a trustworthy—if prickly—source from across the mountains. He warned me that the remnants of the Dark Lord’s followers were fleeing north after the slaughter of Isildur’s men, seeking vengeance against the family of Isildur. The real Adûnarû is dead. Ambushed on the road along with his valet. The glamor was…very good.

“Something put the wind up Imrazôr though. He must have decided his chances were better to take the Elendilmir and flee. He would get a pretty price back for it in ransom if he could. But after ‘Adûnarû’ was slain, he could not flee if he thought he was suspected. I imagine there were others who might find such a death suspicious and wonder who might have been close enough to slay their spy.”

“You knew all this?”

“Our beating of the bushes. We needed Imrazôr to believe we thought him blameless in his master’s murder. We had no way of knowing who else ‘Adûnarû’ might have turned to his cause, including those among the queen’s knights. There was one, who has since fled. He made a veiled remark against those close to our lord, beginning with you, if he did not let things lie. Accusing you was the only way to keep an eye on you, the only way to keep you safe. Through your sheer stubbornness, you managed to botch that up nicely.”

“You might have told me,” Erestor said.

Glorfindel crossed his arms, a sly half-smile tilting a corner of his mouth. “Duplicity was never your strong suit.”

Erestor huffed a laugh and winced.

“He has always been your champion,” Glorfindel said, the smile leaving his face. “Sometimes, a man is given the grace to put right what he once put wrong. If given that chance, he shouldn’t waste it.”

“You know it irritates people when you wax philosophical like this,” Erestor told him, heaving off the blankets and got creaking to his feet. “I think…I need a walk.”

Chaffing his bare arms, he glanced down and grimaced. “Do you mind? It would hardly do to upset the maids walking through the house in only my skin.”

****

When he could, at last, slip his minder, he found himself at the western end of the house before the door of the old watchtower back when Imladris had been but a mere outpost for Lindon’s army.

He had set foot in it only once after the war—to intern his knife. Laying the old ghosts down. Or at least, burying them. He had shut the door on many things then.

It offered a good view, he recalled. Valandil had liked to climb up there. It was a quiet place and not oft used, ideal for a lonely boy.

He negotiated the staircase with exquisite care. Tumbling down these would cause worse grief than a misshapen nose and a few bruises.

Now no guard walked its sinking stone floor, and the bell had been moved above the Hall of Fire to ring out meals instead of alarms.

Only old storage remained: yellowing documents, arms of former soldiers… things gone to rust and ruin…

A draught of air, chiller than outside, prickled his face and neck as he climbed though, thankfully, the stench of rats was receding.

His legs ached by the time he reached the top, stepping into the scent of smoke and old wood, the dark against his eyes absolute.

Slowly, slowly, his eyes adjusted, and he realized it was not wholly dark. An attenuated light from the snow outside leaked through the louvres, their slats shut tight. In a corner, the brazier, kept there for the use of the guard, glowed in its dust beside a nest of blankets and half-eaten food.

“You’re not supposed to be up here,“ came a thin voice from the blankets.

Startled admonishments of his own died on Erestor’s lips when Valandil raised his head. The brash, bold youth who had delighted in climbing over the roofs and wreaking havoc with the scullery maids seemed to have aged years beyond his time. Dark circles marked his eyes: a man’s eyes in a boy’s face.

Too young, too young to have eyes so old.

“Tell me what happened.”

“Go away, Erestor.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d rather stay. My leg won’t take those stairs for a little yet.”

Valandil huffed and put his head back into his arms. Erestor eased down beside him and waited.

The words came, haltingly.

“He laughed at me. Said he was going to take me away. Where no one would find me. It scared me. Those weren’t…His eyes weren’t right. I didn’t think he’d fall…It made the most horrible noise.”

The kind you felt more than heard. Felt in your teeth and the tips of your fingers, the kind that still jerked you out of a sound sleep some nights, thinking a branch snapped against your window.

“I didn’t mean to kill him.” His voice broke, the fractured tone of a boy. “Am I evil, Erestor?”

“No, child. The ones who did this to you were evil. And even were they not, it was an accident.” Erestor put his arm around the boy’s trembling shoulders, fully expecting him to resist with all the pride of a young man.

Valandil buried his face against the borrowed tunic.

He stroked the boy’s hair, still child-fine. In the dull light of the brazier, the granite stones of watchtower flecked with feldspar and quartz, here and there a glittering of mica caught the edge of light.

“Each man is a measure of good and ill. You just hope you have more of one than the other. That you try to do good. Even if you fail. What you cannot do is bear it alone. Those old ghosts. They catch up to you. The only way to beat them back is to turn your hand to something good, something worthy. And remember that there are those—like your mother and foster-father—who love you.”

Valandil wiped his cheek against his shoulder and fidgeted with a corner of the blanket. “What will happen to me now?”

“Well, you could come downstairs, for starters.”

Valandil shook his head at once.

“Well, what’s your plan then? Remain up here the rest of your life? Terrify the maids into believing the kitchen is hounded by hungry ghosts? A few more cold nights like tonight with only that brazier, and there may very well be.”

At length, he gently put Valandil from him and tipped up the recalcitrant chin with a forefinger. “I have already near-frozen once tonight. What say we go down to the kitchens and fetch something to warm ourselves with? You can reassure the maids.”

****

_Sometimes, a man is given the grace to put right what he once put wrong._

Erestor made to rap on the door with his stick, lowered it.

_And if something can’t be put right?_

On a rush of breath ( _forward the colors_ ), he twisted the knob.

The fire had burned so low, for a moment, Erestor thought he must be asleep. The armchair that was his favored seat was pulled right up to the hearth-edge, the crown of his dark, elegant head and one forearm at rest just visible. The hand made a gesture of dismissal.

“Thank you, Calardan. I need nothing just now.”

Erestor took two steps into the room, stopped.

Elrond craned his head around the chair. Though rather haggard about the eyes, he scowled with only mock-displeasure. “You shouldn’t be up yet.”

“I have been told I am rather too stubborn for my own good.”

“You are that…What can I do for you, Erestor?”

The formality of it cut, a little. Deservedly so.

Erestor took a firmer grip on his cane and another two steps into the room. “I would…importune you, my lord. There are some things left unsaid between us that I would rather not leave thus.”

“What things?”

“Valandil has been found.” He explained, in brief. “He is with his mother now.”

Elrond closed his eyes.

“She is a sensible woman—a good quality in a regent—and loves Imladris well,” Erestor continued. “I do not think it will be hard to convince her to remain until Valandil is of age.”

“And how does he fare?” Again, with that cocked head, healer’s tone.

“He is…managing.” Erestor lowered himself into the opposite armchair. “He will heal.”

“Good.”

Erestor tapped the butt of his cane against the floor and, at Elrond’s questioning look, forced himself to stop.

“There was something else?”

“I would thank you.”

“Thank me?”

“For what you did. On my behalf. And not only the saving of my skin tonight.”

“Glorfindel told you. Meddlesome man.”

“You will have no argument from me on that quarter.” He pawed a hand through his hair, fingering the ends thoughtfully. “We have had a near miss of things. That man, Imrazôr, he knew me of old. Knew things…I have told to few. He could not let the old ghosts go. And they consumed him. I do not want to become that.”

“You never could make the choices he did.”

“But I did. In part. He blamed those around him for his loss. As I punished you. For your forgiveness. I punished us both for something I could not undo. Anárion’s death was my fault. I will carry that with me for as long as I live. But I cannot live in that shadow any longer.”

Elrond leaned forward and touched his fingertips to Erestor’s knee. “You must let it lie, my friend. You are too good a man. I would not have you at my side otherwise.”

Erestor lifted the comfort of that warm, familiar hand against his cheek, something deep inside him letting go, a fist unclenching, a chain snapping. He breathed in all the way down to the bottom of his lungs. The first proper breath in years.

“There will be a lot of work to do tomorrow,” Elrond said, twining their fingers together.

Erestor drew him up, leaving his stick beside the dimming fire. “It will keep until morning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Language Notes:
> 
> His = Hiswelókë Sindarin Dictionary
> 
> A = Ardalambion
> 
> Swarn — (A.) perverse, obstructive, hard to deal with.
> 
> A pejorative used by Silvan soldiers during the Last Alliance to refer to the Noldor. (REMFs, essentially)
> 
> Cyll- (His.) bearer
> 
> I’m taking extreme liberties by inferring it could also mean ‘stretcher-bearer’ in the context of war or corpsman
> 
> Herth - (His.) Mil. household, troop under a "hîr" (master, lord).
> 
> The guardsmen of Imladris under Glorfindel.


End file.
